Video Transcript
Diphenyl oxalate, hydrogen peroxide, and rhodamine B are mixed together in a plastic tube. After a few seconds, the plastic tube begins to feel warm and the resulting mixture starts to glow a bright-red color. Which types of energy are produced by the mixture?
Energy is a quantity that can exist in many categories. For example, kinetic energy is the energy of an object in motion. And thermal energy or heat is energy due to the motion or vibration of particles, where the transfer of thermal energy is heating or cooling. Another form of energy is radiant energy, which is energy of electromagnetic radiation traveling in waves. Light is a type of electromagnetic radiation, and it’s the part of the spectrum that we can see. So radiant energy is often called light energy.
So we’ve now looked at a few different types of energy. There are many more types, including nuclear, electrical, and sound. But we don’t need to know what they are to answer this question. The question is asking us “Which types of energy are produced by the mixture?” One indicator of the type of energy that might be produced is the fact that the tube begins to feel warm. This means that there is heating involved. So one of the types of energy that’s produced by the mixture is heat.
Another indicator of one of the types of energy that’s produced by the mixture is the fact that it glows a bright-red color. If it is glowing, it is giving off light. So heat energy and light energy are the types of energy produced by the mixture. Other types of energy, such as kinetic energy, are essentially irrelevant. So the answer to the question “Which types of energy are produced by the mixture diphenyl oxalate, hydrogen peroxide, and rhodamine B?” are heat and light.
